A character study of a man, perhaps a Rembrandt self-portrait. Scientists, including Joris Dik of TU Delft, uncovered this hidden painting thanks to new research. They managed to get behind the painting Old man in military uniform by Rembrandt van Rijn.
For centuries sat behind Old man in military uniform by Rembrandt (1606-1669) hidden an older painting. It remained invisible under the new layer of paint that Rembrandt applied. Until now. Thanks in part to technology from TU Delft, it is now possible to see for the first time in about 385 years which painting has been hidden for so long. It is a so-called character study, a tronie. It shows a young man in a cloak. Rembrandt is known for painting over earlier creations in his younger years.
Special X-ray techniques
It is very special that the scientists managed to make the hidden painting visible. It has been known for decades that under Old man in military uniform another effigy. But no one knew exactly what. A remarkable feature of this research was the use of a special mobile scanner. This device was used for Old man in military uniform at the J. Paul Getty Museum in the United States.
The scientists used special techniques:TO and MA-XRF. With NAAR they portrayed, among other things, the shape of the face and the cloak. “In addition, this revealed the chemical composition of some of the pigments Rembrandt used,” says Joris Dik. He is professor of Material in Art &Archaeology (Tu Delft). He collaborated with researchers from the University of Antwerp.
MA-XRF is a special X-ray technique that the researchers developed. It gave much more information about the chemical elements. “With a thin beam, we pick up everything from the periodic table. We see the metals in the pigments, so we can distinguish different paint layers and know which colors have been used. Per dot we see how much of a certain element is present.”
Red lips and dark hair
For example, the researchers know that the man in the painting has red lips and somewhat darker hair. The costume is greenish. “We have developed the technology in recent years. But now we've made this technique so small that it fits in a scanner that you can use in a museum. Previously, we had to bring paintings to particle accelerators in France and Germany, for example. That is no longer necessary. We developed the mobile scanner together with the industry,” says Dik. It took about thirty hours to Old man in military uniform to scan.
Dik compares his technology with normal X-rays. “That makes structures visible by looking at the differences in absorption of the X-rays. This is also how it works when the dentist maps your teeth or has a scan made in a hospital. As a result, we can see very well whether a painting has been painted with white lead”, explains Dik. “Unfortunately, other pigments are then not visible. We can do that with our mobile scanner.”
Including the leading Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York already purchased a mobile scanner. For many museums, the scanner is not only attractive for exposing hidden paintings; with the scanner they can also see exactly what kind of paint the artists used. Restorers can then check whether a certain color has faded, the pigment has degraded, or what other restorers have added.
Dik would like to use his technology to explore even more paintings. High on his own wish list is The old guitarist by Pablo Picasso. “That is a very special painting, a key piece. Picasso took a different path with this painting. He began to look at reality differently. He depicted perspectives on the painting in a completely different way. We know he's been working on it for months. Underneath the final result is not one painting bent, but three or four. If we can make it visible, then we look between his ears; we can almost see him thinking.”